Eggplant Recipes

Eggplant on it's own is a low calorie vegetable, it's the cheese and fat in many dishes utilizing it that make the dish too high in calories.

One of my favorite ways to use Eggplant is in a Ratatouille ... and there are a lot of different ones that can be made. Some chop the vegetables into cubes and mix them all together, and I've seen a lovely recipe for one that had slices of the vegetables shingled in a lovely round that looked very inviting and pretty. Mine didn't come out as lovely as what I saw in the recipe that I found online.

For my taste, anytime you combine eggplant with tomatoes, and onions you end up with a tasty dish. Adding in bell peppers makes it even better. And if you like summer squashes, then zucchini or yellow squash is a nice addition as well.

The chunked up vegetables, when roasted in the oven with a drizzle of oil and some garlic makes a nice topping for pasta or as a side vegetable dish. Olives tossed in go real good here.

I stronly suggest you do a short google search and look at whatever recipe sparks your interest.

PS ... here is a favorite that I make sometimes ... slice the eggplant into rounds about 1/2 inch thick. If it's a young eggplant, you can skip the salting to brink out some liquid that you blot away ... if the seeds inside look dark, it's an old eggplant, so sprinkle salt on it and let sit about 20-30 minutes to sweat, then blot them dry and proceed. ... Spread breadcrumbs into a plant and lightly press the eggplant round on both sides into the crumbs ... a thin layer will adhere. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet and then bake them about 20-30 minutes in a medium or moderate oven (350-375 F). They will cook through and the crumbs might brown up a little. Let them cool and then pack them with sheets of wax paper between into a freezer container and freeze to use as eggplant parm sandwiches or pasta topping. To use ... simply defrost and eggplant rounds, top each with a tablespoon or so of spaghetti sauce and a slice of melting cheese. Sprinkle on any herbs you like and heat/bake/microwave. I love this as a sandwich, but have used a couple of rounds on top of pasta, especially when I have some spaghetti sauce with mushrooms in it.

PPS ---if it's an 'old' eggplant, best to skin it. The stuff you get at the grocery store at this time of year where I live, it will be old eggplant. The eggplant rounds I described do better with young eggplant because you don't need to skin them.


PPPS .... And one more recipe that I love ... it's actually like a spread ... you roast the eggplant, whole. When its baked for about 30 minutes, bring it out and when it's cool enough to handle, cut it open and scrape out all the flesh and seeds. Chop them up and place in a bowl. Then, chop up a tomato, mince some onion, and combine with the eggplant along with some green herbs, salt and pepper, some olive or sunflower oil. You can eat that as a spread on bread, to top a potato, etc.

Try this. I made it couple of weeks ago, and will likely make again later this week. The eggplant, sliced longwise, replaces the noodles in this "lasagna." A classic Italian-style meal and not eggplant parmesan.

Notes on recipe: we think thinner slices are better (recipe states 1/4 inch, we had better results with those slices that were thinner, I was a little uneven in my slicing). Use only the "inner" slices of the eggplant - the "outer" slices, when unpeeled, have a LOT of peel (it's also easier if both the top and bottom are lopped off before slicing); I cubed these outer slices up and used the cubes as cooked veggies in the sauce I made. I made the dish with ground turkey.

Link: https://addapinch.com/easy-eggplant-lasagna-recipe/

I made a little more than the recipe indicates, and declared 12 servings in MFP recipe builder. That gave me, per serving, 315cal, 28g protein, 19g carb, 15g fat. A serving was simply 1/12 cutout of the baking pan.

I would suggest also you get the male eggplants, they have less seeds. But you already have yours, this is future advice. There's a bunch of videos on youtube and web pages that describe how to tell which are male and female.

Good luck.

alyssa0061 wrote: »

The only recipe I need for eggplant is patience because it takes a long *kitten* time to cook

Am i missing some MFP inside joke or internet meme? I see a number of posts on MFP with a "*kitten*" reference. It sometimes looks as if its a place where something cruder might have been written.

ah, ok, thx. is this a machine edit on the posting, or a human thing?

sammyliftsandeats wrote: »

mjbnj0001 wrote: »

ah, ok, thx. is this a machine edit on the posting, or a human thing?

A machine edit. I've seen some people type it in themselves but 99% of the time, it's one of the bots catching a curse word and censoring it.

OK, thanks.

I made this stuffed eggplant this week



Super easy. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and score the inside of each half, leaving around a centimetre untouched at the edges. Rub with olive oil and seasoning of choice and pop them in a hot oven (200c) for 15 minutes or so.

Whole that's cooking, make your filling on the stovetop. You could use practically anything here- leftovers, rice, veggies, cheeses etc. for these ones I used a combination of pork mince, mushroom, spinach and feta. Cook/heat all filling ingredients in a pan.

Remove eggplants from oven. The scored insides will scoop out easily. You'll be left with little eggplant boats to fill with filling (you can mix the eggplant guts back into the filling mixture or save them for another meal)

Fill your boats and pop back in the oven (topped with optional cheese/breadcrumbs) for another 5 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

I made a simple curry with it last week. Garlic and onions, the eggplant, tiny bit of stock and some curry powder and other spices.